Kill the Dragon

So it's been a long while since I've posted anything.  Truth is, it's been a busy year for life and a slow year for Heroscape.  Plus, when we have played, I've forgotten to take pictures, and what fun is a Heroscape blog post without pictures?

But last night we had a game called "Kill the Dragon".  It was a team game with 5 players on one team and 2 players (both played by me) on the other.  We tried to find a way for most of the players to be on the same team against one enemy.  One of the big challenges was to get the balance right in terms of points and Order Markers.  I think we did okay, but it probably still needs a little tweaking.

Here's the pregame story I read to other players before we began...

For centuries, Weston was known for the strength of its steel, due in large part to a deposit of uniquely strong iron discovered under the largest mountain in Weston, thereafter called the Iron Mountain. The mines of the Iron Mountain provided the raw materials for thousands of weapons, and it made the blacksmiths, the people, and the king of Weston incredibly rich.

That is…until he came….Ancalagon the Black. 

He laid waste to fields, devoured flocks, and ravaged villages.  Worst of all, the great and terrible black dragon took up residence in the mines of the Iron Mountain.  Ancalagon’s acid spray line burned deep into the mine, collapsing tunnels and disintegrating miners.

An attempt was made immediately by the king to drive the dragon from the mines, but he was unprepared to face a dragon like Ancalagon.  He barely escaped with his life.  Most of his men did not. 

A second attempt to retake the mines suffered the same fate and a third.  Soon Ancalagon was joined by a mate, Braxas, a terrible and vicious dragon in her own right, and the two spawned many young black dragons, which made retaking the mines a virtual impossibility.  The king of Weston conceded the mountain to Ancalagon, and the mines were lost.

Now, the stores of iron from the Iron Mountain’s mines are long depleted, and the harvests have been sparingly small for the last few years as fields have suffered frequent raids by the offspring of Braxas and Ancalagon.  The economy of Weston has collapsed.  There is no steel to sell and no food to eat.

But there is hope.  A new king has come to the throne in Weston…Godric the Lionhearted, and he has decided to personally address the problem of the black dragons of the Iron Mountain. 

Godric has gathered a contingent of knights, archers, and champions of the realm, including Sir Denrick, the giant hunter, and Sir Taylor, a reputed, if somewhat inexperienced, dragon slayer.  He has also enlisted the assistance of the famed dragon hunter Pavel Halfdane from across the sea. 

Together Godric, his knights, archers, and champions have climbed the pathways up the Iron Mountain to face the terrible foe.  They have come to this place to kill the dragons, to reclaim and reopen the mines, and to free the land of Weston from the scourge of Ancalagon the Black and his clan.  They face incredible odds, but Godric has the heart of a lion.

He will kill the dragon or die in the attempt.

The game was a lot of fun, and the six of us had a great time.  I even made the lemonade black (in order to be intimidating).  We had pizza, mac and cheese, watermelon, and butter beers.  In the end, however, the last play looked like this:

Sir Godric the Lionhearted and the forces of Weston were successful as the last Black Drake fell to one of the Knights of Weston with Godric looking on.

Here are the temporary cards for Godric and Ancalagon:

Godric is the D&D figure, Cleric of St. Cuthbert.  Ancalagon is the D&D Gargantuan Black Dragon.

Here's the Virtualscape version of the board:

As I said, it was a great game and a lot of fun.  And I'm happy to be back on the blog.

Happy Heroscaping, everybody.

Raynor's Raiders...Raiders, Roll

Wow, has it been a while since I've posted!

I guess it really is a good thing when life is so full that I don't have time to sit at the computer and post a significant blog entry about Heroscape.  I like Heroscape a lot, but I also realize it's a hobby. 

Heroscape provides me with a helpful escape from life from time to time...allowing me to imagine and create worlds filled with deadly swamps, treacherous, snow-covered mountains, broad grassy fields, and deep, dark dungeons.  I get to dabble for a while in a world in which the rules are known and followed by all the players, the purpose is clear, and your enemies are easily identifiable.  In life, it is not always so.

Another way I like to escape for a little while is through Starcraft.  It's another war game, of course, with a little less randomness in the play and a lot more blood and carnage.  I prefer to play as Terrans (I do like my Bunkers and Seige Tanks) rather than Zerg or Protoss.

My first attempt at combining the two games was a Unique Squad of two U.E.D. Marines.

I took a couple of Zettian Guards and dug out the heads (Do they really have heads, per se?).  Then I took a couple of extra Drake Alexanders (RoTV) and first, cut their heads off, then cut the faces off the heads.  I glued the faces into the head cavities of the two Zettian Guards, then painted them in camoflauge.  They turned out pretty well, and my friends (some of whom also play Starcraft) enjoyed playing with them.

After the release of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, however, I was no longer satisfied with my little squad of two marines.  I wanted more!

Then I found a set of Tactical Squad of Warhammer 40K Space Marines in a (relatively) local game store, and I knew I'd found what I'd been looking for.  Each box contains 10 marines (For those of you counting at home, that means three common squads of three marines each and one unique hero.  Perfect!) that I could build however I wanted to.  I had to have them.

So, of course, I bought the box, and then, of course, I let it sit on my shelf for about 8 months.

Last April, though, I took a week of staycation, and finally got them out and start working on them, cutting them off the sprues and piecing them together with a little super glue.

My wife was kind enough to take a few pictures of the process for this blog entry (which I had planned all along).

Of course, having been inspired by Wings of Liberty, the marines I made were Raynor's Raiders ("Raiders roll..."), with Jim Raynor as their Hero.

Keeping with the theme of the original Starcraft, Raynor's Raiders had to be blue.  I used a base of a bright blue and then did a second coat in a metallic blue with some silver and some black metallic paint.  I also used gunmetal gray metallic paint for the weapong.  It turned out great.  I highly recommend the gunmetal gray.

I painted Raynor, in a metallic green, rather than blue...to keep with the Starcraft theme and to help distinguish him from the Raiders.

The final result was this:

Me like!

Once the figures were done, of course, I had to go to work on the cards.

I already had worked out some of what the stats and powers would be, but I had to put them in card form and work out a few of the kinks.  Here's how they came out:

For the Raiders, I kept the Stim Pack power from my original squad of marines, but exchanged the camoflauge (which didn't seem appropriate) for Commander Bonding.  Jandar still seemed to be the best ideological fit for Raynor and his Raiders.

For Raynor, I used the idea of Raynor's special power in Belly of the Beast (the next to the last mission of Wings of Liberty, if you choose to do it) and used the language of the Fire Line Special Attack to create his Perdition Shot Special Attack (Awesome!), and I took a page from the Orcs and gave him Marine Enhancement to go with their bonding power.

They turned out beautifully!

Of course, I couldn't stop there.  I needed to have marines from all three Terran factions, Raynor's Raiders, the Terran Dominon, and the U.E.D.  So I bought a couple more sets of marines off ebay, and made myself some more to complete my collection.  I also gave the marines from each faction slightly different powers and point values, so a player can choose the value of the marnies he wants to play with (they all have Stim Pack, though).

So in addition to Jim Raynor with his three squads of Raynor's Raiders, I now have three squads of U.E.D. Marines ("I've been waiting on you..."),  in white armor, in keeping with Omega, the last mission of Brood War) with Adm. Alexei Stukov as the companion hero.  They follow Einar.

And I have three squads of the Sons of Korhal ("You want a piece of me, boy?") in red armor, also in keeping with Omega, the last mission of Brood War), with Gen. Horace Warfield as the companion hero (who has Shredder Grenades and a Flame Thrower).  They follow Wyndar (a not as evil as Utgar or Valkrill, but not good Valkyrie my son Ben and I created that calls the desert home...seemed appropriate for Korhal and Mengsk's marines).

As for my original squad of two marines, I was going to just retire them as prototypes whose time had passed, but then I had an idea.  I renamed them and turned them into mercenaries (again in keeping with the theme of Wings of Liberty).

Oh, I also made a few other Starcraft-themed figures as well, but I think I've blogged enough for now.

Happy heroscaping!